


let's go get our idiot back

by KirstieJ



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Fix-It, Fluff, Gen, Like just barely post canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KirstieJ/pseuds/KirstieJ
Summary: A re-write/fix-it of the last moments of the finale. Before the Urania takes off that final time, a call is made. Doug regains his memories. They really, actually do it, for real, this time.





	let's go get our idiot back

**Author's Note:**

> So honestly I adored the finale, I love the writing in general, but I just really vehemently don't agree with Eiffel's character arc ending with him losing the past he's tried to run and hide and eventually accept and overcome after so damn long... so. I fixed it.

“What,” Doug pants, “what the fuck,” he looks around himself, eyes wide.

“Shh, shh,” a voice comes from beside him, soothing. He looks over, eyes pained and scared.

“Ren- Min.. Minkov, Minkow- Commander?”

“It’s okay, Doug, it’s gonna be okay,” she continues to soothe.

“I, what, what,” Doug squeezes his eyes shut and bars his teeth. “I.. Hera? Hera? Are you there, of corse you’re there, Hera is always there. And, Lovelace she’s she’s- oh god I was right! And Jacobi, but, oh, right, damn.. Maxwell, I-” Renée rubs his shoulder and brushes back his hair as he groans and grunts in pain.

“Anne!” He yells, “my-my baby? My baby girl I, I, I remember my baby girl, I can remember holding her,” he chokes on a sob and Renée puts a hand to his cheek, making cooing noises. “How can I remember? What? I forgot it all, how am- oh, oh yeah. We, we went over this. I,” he continues to cry and shutter, leaning his face into Renée’s hand.

“Should we give him something? Put him under? Can we do anything?” she asks, eyes welling up with tears as she watches him, one again, wail in excruciating pain.

“He will be fine,” Isabel says, at the foot of the cot. Her eyes and hands are glowing and her voice is booming. At that voice, Doug’s eyes snap open again. “Give him a minute. It is part of the process. Yes, it is painful, and disorienting, and it will take longer than it did with Isabel, because he is mostly only human. But, he will be fine.”

“I’ve been here, too, remember?” Hera chimes in. “It’s okay, Doug. It’s going to be okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” Doug pants, nodding. “Hera, oh, Hera,” he starts again, “I’m so sorry. My plan was so dumb, it worked, it worked and it was good but you, and I? And, I was going to say, I wanted to tell you, I love you. I love you, Hera.”

“I love you too, Doug,” Hera says, affectionate.

“I..” Doug continues to pant, closing his eyes. “God. God. I, I can’t. I can’t believe...”

“You’re going to be fine, Doug. Deep breaths,” Renée instructs, soft.

Doug does his best to listen to the commander, taking in deep, rattled breaths. He continues to murmur in jagged, rough phrases for the next three minutes or so before he opens his eyes back up.

“I, I forgot and then I- I’m, I’m back? I’m back,” he states more clearly. “I am back, baby,” he says, even more forcefully, a smile starting to spread on his face.

“Doug. Officer Eiffel,” Renée smiles, her voice remarkably fond.  

“Renée? Renée,” he says, reaching for her, pulling her close. “Minkowski,” he says, her name sighed like a sweet nothing on his lips in utter relief.

“Doug,” she repeats, laughing just a little. Disbelieving. They pull back and he swallows. She stares at him a moment longer, before firmly pressing a kiss to his forehead. He breathes out a pleased noise, a tear or two slipping from his eyes.

After another moment of just being together, breathing slowly, Doug pulls back, looking over at Isabel. She’s still glowing.

“The process is complete. Again, things may be a bit discombobulated for a while, perhaps indefinitely, but your memories have been restored. Thank you, Douglas, for all you have done for us, and for your continued cooperation. Particularly, for helping destroy the violent trolls that wasted their time and potential on rather vile… whamajama.”

“Yeah, anytime,” Doug says with a little chuckle. “Thank you for, uh, giving me back my... self, really.”

“No sweat. See you on the flip side, dude,” Isabel says with a hint of humour to her booming voice. “And you will now have your Isabel back, for good this time. At least, we hope. Ciao.”

With that, the possession from the Dear Listeners drops, and Isabel folds forward a bit. Daniel helps steady her as she tells him she’s fine. 

“Wow,” Doug says, leaning back. “Isabel, are you alright?”

“Am _I_ alright? Douglas F. Eiffel, you just went through a reintegration of your entire memory, and you are asking if  _I_  am alright?”

“Yeah, but-“ Isabel scoffs loud enough to cut Doug off and he sighs back at her. “Whatever, Izzy. Just, get over here and give us a hug.”

“Now that is a reasonable suggestion,” Isabel says, going to him and hugging him. A moment later, she pulls Renée into the hug too.

When they pull back, Doug glances over, then smiles just a little. “Jacobiii?” he says, holding out his arms.

“Oh,” Daniel says, raising a brow, “so, uh, we’re back to last names now?”

“What?” Doug says, letting his arms drop part way. “Oh, dammit, Daniel. Get over yourself, you know what I meant.” 

“Full names, Douglas? That might be worse.”

“Danny boy! Get. Over. Here!” Daniel laughs and finally goes in for the hug, Doug squeezing him tight. 

“Didja miss me?” Doug asks.

“Like burning,” Daniel says, smirking. “For real, glad to have you back.”

“Glad to be back,” Doug says, “though, admittedly, really fricking weird. Like. Hooo boy.”

“Take all the time you need, Doug. We’ve still got a lot of travelling to go,” Renée tells him.

“Yep,” Hera says, drawing out the p-sound. “Really, Doug. I’m so, so happy that we.. we could-” she makes a sighing noise, at a loss.

“I know, Hera, I’m glad too, sweetheart. But, hey,” Doug says. “I’ll admit, I’m over the moon to be here, especially now that I can remember forgetting it’s... it’s weird. Commander. Renée, I asked you if I was still me, and I definitely wasn’t. I never would have been. It was- I was totally different. And, well. Oh, I still am sorry,” Doug looks at Renée. “What I said, when I was listening to those tapes again, still true. I was a jerk.”

“It’s okay,” Renée tells him. “Like I said, your commander was a bit of a hardass.” Doug chuckles.

“Yeah. And, well,” Doug tilts his head, “now that I am me again, odds are I’m gonna probably be a jerk from time to time.”

“Mmmh, probably,” Renée says.

“I apologize in advance. But, hey, for real, call me on it. I’ll do my best.”

“Oh, I will,” she says.

“Same,” Lovelace chimes in and Hera agrees.

“I’ll probably just egg you on,” Daniel says with a shrug.

Doug laughs. “Okay, sounds good. I. Fuck, yeah, this was rough. But, Hera? Back to what I was trying to say,”

“Yeah, Doug?”

“You did what you had to. What I told you to do. I know it was bad and, well- Honestly, I’m glad I am back. Because at the end of the day, even though there have been times that I hated not only my life, but deep down who I am as a person. Which sucks, and is scary, but, given those times, I want to be me. I want to be myself, and know myself, and do what I can to be the best me.”

“And I am so glad you get to do that,” Hera says.

“But,” Doug says, sharp. “For real this time, this is the point,” he tells her.

“But?” Hera asks.

“But, if it couldn’t have been done, what we did still would have been worth it.” He pauses, nodding. “I need you to know you made the right call. It sucked that I was gone, and I know that now more than ever, but I also know that it was necessary to take care of Pryce, and that was a fair sacrifice. An eye for an eye,” he concludes.

“Makes the whole world blind,” Hera goes on. “But, yeah. I’m really fucking glad she’s been subdued.”

“Good,” Doug says. “Where is she, by the way? Wait, do I know? Did you tell.. the shell of me?” 

“No,” Renee says, “we didn’t want to overwhelm you. She’s in the brig, which we actually have on the Urania.”

“Ah, I see. And what about, uh, the others? Kepler, Young, Cutter, and, uh, god, what’s his face?”

“Dead. All dead,” Daniel says.

“Wh.. how?” Doug asks.

“As far as we’ve gathered, Kepler and Rachael seemed to have offed each other,” Isabel tells him. “We found her body, and evidence that someone was maaayybe sabotaging the big evil plan. We can’t know, but we think Kepler might have had juuuust enough human left in him. His body is missing but we have record of the door to the outside  being open, so..”

Doug nods, “Okay. Coming in the clutch, Kepler the old dog.”

“Daniel took care of Riemann in his usual explosive style and Renée... would you like to tell him what happened to our dear Mr. Cutter?”

“Uh, sure. Well. After managing to get Isabel here to shoot me,”  Doug pulls a face, and Renée rolls her eyes, “You knew that, and I’m _fine._ ” He just grunts, but she goes on. “After _that¸_ he had a liiittlee run in with my harpoon.”

“No way,” Doug says, his eyes lighting up. “Okay, that is terrible and disgusting and murder is bad and I should not be happy about this, but-”

“It was pretty sweet,” Isabel says with a shrug and a smirk.

“It sounds like it was sick,” Doug shakes his head. “God,  _Renée._  I am proud of you.”

“And I’m proud of you, Eiffel. I’m proud of this entire crew.”

“We really did achieve the incredibly unlikely and almost barely possible. Go team,” Daniel says, with what appears to be a genuine, non-snarky smile on his face. 

“We.. we really did it, huh?” Doug says, disbelief in his voice. There are murmurs of agreement from the others and faint, disbelieving smiles and nods.

“We really did,” Hera replies. “We really did it.”


End file.
